Paris (ESA) Jun 30, 2022
European technology that allows satellite navigation signals to safely guide aircraft down for landing in the majority of Europe's airports will now be put to use across Africa and the Indian Ocean. ASECNA, the Agency for Air Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar, and ESA has signed an agreement to deploy a Satellite-based Augmentation System (SBAS) across a service region of more than 16.5

Washington DC (UPI) Jun 29, 2021
The highly anticipated first photos from the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope provided scientists with an emotional experience, NASA officials said Wednesday, two weeks before their public release. Thomas Zurbuchen, the head of NASA's scientific programs, said the telescope, which was launched into space in December, and its images are shedding light on "a new worldview." H

Bonn, Germany (SPX) Jun 30, 2022
Many of us have probably already - literally - handled the chemical compound iso-propanol: it can used as an antiseptic, a solvent or a cleaning agent. But this substance is not only found on Earth: researchers led by Arnaud Belloche from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn have now detected the molecule in interstellar space for the first time. It was observed in a "deliv

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 30, 2022
Not even Obi-Wan Kenobi could convince Perseverance's Katie Stack Morgan that these are not the rocks she's looking for. Ask any space explorer, and they'll have a favorite photograph or two from their mission. For Katie Stack Morgan, the deputy project scientist for NASA's Perseverance Mars rover, the first close-up image of layered rocks at the base of Jezero Crater's ancient river delta

Cape Canaveral FL (SPX) Jun 30, 2022
SES has announced that the SES-22 satellite was successfully launched into space onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX's Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, United States, at 5:04 pm local time. The first of SES's C-band satellites dedicated to freeing up the lower 300 MHz of C-band spectrum is built by Thales Alenia Space, and will operate in t

Long Beach CA (SPX) Jun 30, 2022
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) reports that its Lunar Photon spacecraft has successfully completed the third of seven planned orbit raising maneuvers, bringing the CAPSTONE spacecraft closer to the Moon. Owned and operated by Advanced Space on behalf of NASA, the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) CubeSat will be the first

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Jun 30, 2022
Reusable launch systems are exposed to high dynamic and thermo-mechanical loads during their return to Earth. The German Aerospace Center has now successfully tested high temperature structures, advanced measurement techniques and design tools for the re-entry phase with the STORT (Schlusseltechnologien fur hochenergetische Ruckkehrfluge von Tragerstufen - key technologies for high-energy return

Beijing (XNA) Jun 30, 2022
Tianwen 1, China's historic Mars mission, has accomplished all its preset scientific tasks, according to the China National Space Administration. The administration said on Wednesday that the Tianwen 1 mission orbiter has obtained medium-definition images of the entire planet, marking the completion of its scientific goals. The craft has circled Mars 1,344 times to date and will cont

Bern, Switzerland (SPX) Jun 30, 2022
NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission is the world's first full-scale planetary defense test against potential asteroid impacts on Earth. Researchers of the University of Bern and the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS now show that instead of leaving behind a relatively small crater, the impact of the DART spacecraft on its target could leave the asteroid

Evanston IL (SPX) Jun 30, 2022
A Northwestern University-led team of astrophysicists has developed the first-ever full 3D simulation of an entire evolution of a jet formed by a collapsing star, or a "collapsar." Because these jets generate gamma ray bursts (GRBs) - the most energetic and luminous events in the universe since the Big Bang - the simulations have shed light on these peculiar, intense bursts of light. Their